Problems faced by theories which try to explain reference, namely, indeterminacy are discussed. Ontological categories together with common psycholinguistic processes such as either the use of contextual and extra-linguistic cues or shared knowledge allow to recover the specific and by nature endless sense of a word and its referents. The effect other factors have over structuring and retrieving meaning is empirically demonstrated by Monteiro's data obtained among 43 subjects with different levels of literacy and schooling. Two main preferred although not mutually exclusive strategies were observed: retrieval of linguistic conceptual meanings and event representations.
Semantic Categorization; Indeterminacy; Event Representation; Literacy
